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THE ALL-ALONE HOUSE 

By 

RUTH CAMPBELL 

Author of 

“That Pink and Blue Affair * 

“The Runaway Smalls” 


Illustrated by 

HATTIE LONGSTREET PRICE 


THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

PHILADELPHIA 

1923 







COPYRIGHT 
1923 J > BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



The All Alone House 

Manufacturing 

Plant 

Camden*, N. J* 



< t 


NOV 30 ”23 

©CJA76G056 



Printed in the U. S. A, 



This book is affectionately dedicated 
to my husband 
FRANCIS CAMPBELL 
“The Critic On the Hearth 


To whose kindly and scholarly criticisms 
I will owe whatever success may come my way. 




























CONTENTS 

I. THE ALL ALONE HOUSE.9 

II. POTS OF PAINT.25 

III. THE REBELLION OF REX.45 

IY. THE PUDDLE PATH.66 






* 









t 



J 







ILLUSTRATIONS 


“A little boy sat by a window” . . 

Frontispiece 

PAGE 

“But where are the cousins?’’ . 

• 

19 

There Marcia found him .... 

• 

29 

“We’ll drive first to the candy store’* 

• 

59 

Finally all of the boats were launched 

. 

. 71 


The All Alone House 












I?. ' \ 

' I .'' ' 








THE ALL ALONE HOUSE 





* 




THE ALL ALONE HOUSE 

A LITTLE boy sat in a window and looked mournfully 
at a sign on the front porch. He was a gloomy little 
boy and disconsolate, and the sign did not make him 
any happier, for on it in black letters against a red background 
was the word “ Mumps,” and the little boy had them. They 
did not hurt much, hut they kept all of his playmates away from 
him, and made passers-by look at the house a second time. 

The people who passed interested the little boy, as he sat 
with his pathetic face against the glass and watched the street. 
Some of them looked at the sign and smiled, some of them 
looked serious, and once in a while a very fussy looking woman 

ll 












































12 


The All Alone House 

would cross to the other side of the street, pulling her children 
after her and sniffing scornfully at the sign. Two or three 
women had jumped when they saw the sign, as if it was going 
to climb down and “ Boo ” at them. 

“Colin!” called the little boy’s mother, “what are you 
doing? ” 

“ Nothing much, just thinking,” answered Colin. “ Mother, 
do you suppose I will ever get over the mumps and play out 
with my chums again? ” 

There was a wobble in his voice that brought his mother to 
his side. “ Poor little chap,” she said. “ Time does drag, 
doesn’t it? But you won’t have to stay in much longer, and I 
have a wonderful secret to tell you that will make the days 
pass much quicker.” 

Now Colin knew that the very best way to hear a secret was 
to climb on his mother’s lap and cuddle down, which he did 
now, and when he was all comfy with her arms about him she 
told him the wonderful secret. 

“We are going to Grandmother’s for the summer.” 

Colin sat straight up. “ We are! ” he cried. “ For all sum¬ 
mer? Oh, Mother, it is just too good to be true. Are you 
going, and Daddy? ” 

“We are going to take you,” his mother answered, “ but we 
are not going to stay.” 

“ Why not? I’ll be unhappy without you,” Colin said. 

“ Daddy can’t be away from his business, and you know we 
can’t leave him here all alone for the whole summer. You will 
love it at Grandmother’s and you won’t miss me at all. Grand¬ 
mother will adore you, and I am afraid she will spoil you too, 
but it won’t hurt you any.” 

“ I don’t remember much about Grandmother, or where she 


The All Alone House 13 

lives,” Colin said. “ I must have been very little when I was 
there before.” 

“You were,” answered his mother. 

“ Tell me about it all,” Colin begged. He loved to hear 
stories of his grandmother and his little cousins and the fun 
they all had together, and although his mother had told him the 
same stories dozens of times he never tired of them. 

“ Well,” his mother went on, “ there is the Big House. That 
is where Grandmother lives, and where I lived when I was a 
little girl.” 

“ Did you have any brothers or sisters? ” Colin asked. He 
very well knew all about the brothers and sisters but he wanted 
to hear again. “ And did they have children? ” 

His mother laughed. “ You rascal! Do you want to hear 
about them again? Yes, I had many brothers and sisters and 
now they are all grown up and have children like you, and 
they are all your first cousins. There are Buster and Eliza¬ 
beth Anne. Buster is twelve and his little sister is six. And 
then there is Tommie. Tommie is a scamp.” 

Colin giggled. “ I love to hear about the time he fell in the 
rain barrel,” he said. 

“And there are Marcia and Cara; they are sisters and Marcia 
is your age (Colin was nine) and Cara is five, a year younger 
than Elizabeth Anne. Then there is one more, Kenneth. He 
is just fine and because he has no brothers or sisters he has to 
be sweet enough and good enough for a whole family.” 

“ Is he? ” asked Colin. 

“ Yes, he is a dear. I remember one time his father fell and 
broke his leg. Kenneth was all alone in the house and he 
called a doctor right away and ’phoned Grandmother, and 
helped his father to bed like a regular little man. We were 


14 The All Alone House 

all so proud of him, and he took the very best care in the 
world of his father after that. He ran errands and waited on 
him and was so cheerful that his father just could not be 
unhappy.” 

“And he got a present for that,” said Colin, who knew the 
story, “ a darling doggie named ‘ Sandy,’ and now Kenneth 
and Sandy play together all of the time, with all of the little 
cousins. That makes nine playmates.” 

“ Only six cousins,” his mother said. 

“ I was counting them all,” Colin told her. “ Six cousins 
and three dogs, and when I go there will be ten of us. Will 
we play together every day, Mother? ” 

“ I think you will,” was the answer. “ The children all adore 
their grandmother, and she loves to have them around her, so 
every day during vacation they go to the Big House. It is 
such a wonderful place! ” 

“ Don’t you ever miss it, Mother dear? ” asked Colin. 

“ I have never stopped missing it,” his mother said. There 
was a suggestion of tears in her voice that made Colin put his 
arms around her neck. 

“ Never mind, Mother,” he said. “ We couldn’t live there 
and here too, and Daddy lives here.” 

His mother gave him a little hug. “ You’re a precious, un¬ 
derstanding little boy,” she said. “ Of course we want to live 
here with Daddy.” 

“But we will be glad always to visit at Grandmother’s, 
won’t we? ” Colin finished. 

The days went by more quickly after that. Colin spent 
hours getting his things together for the summer. He sorted 
out his toys and put away the smallest in a box for the summer 
“ for rainy days,” he told his mother. He wrote letters to all 


1 5 


The All Alone House 

of the cousins to tell them he was coming, and had answers 
from every one, even Cara. Hers was such a scrawly little 
letter that Colin laughed and laughed over it. 

“ Deer colin,” it read. “ i am glad you are comeing i have 
a dog have you we will play lots, i love you Cara.” 

“ Her dog’s name is ‘ Pat,’ ” said Colin. “ I know because 
you have told me stories about him, and how Cara’s father 
takes him hunting.” 

Before Colin knew it, he was well. The doctor said he could 
play out and a nice man came and took the red and black sign 
down from the porch. After that the days passed even more 
quickly and then one day his mother said it was time to begin 
getting their things in a trunk. Colin put his clothes in a big 
trunk with his mother’s and every day got more and more 
excited. 

Each morning he would sing at the top of his voice, “ Only 
five more days! ” then “ Only four more days!” then “ Only 
three more days! ” and at last there was only one more day and 
everything was packed. 

Colin was too excited to eat and that last night at home 
he simply could not get to sleep. 

“ The boy will be sick with so much excitement,” his mother 
said. 

But his father laughed and said, “ It’s good healthy excite¬ 
ment and won’t hurt him a bit.” 

For an hour before they left for the station Colin hopped 
around getting dreadfully in the way. He lost his hat and 
worried about the lunch. Had Cook put in enough cakes? 
Were there oranges and could he have cookies, too? 

“ Colin! you’re a nuisance,” his mother finally said. “Go 
and sit with your father so that I can finish, or we never will 


16 The All Alone House 

get started.” So Colin sat with his father and asked enough 
questions to drive a grown-up crazy. 

But at last it was time to leave. Colin turned to look at the 
house as they drove away. 

“ It looks like an All Alone House,” he said. “ The windows 
are like eyes half closed with the shades down that way. They 
look like eyes that are going to cry; it all seems unhappy.” 

His mother sighed ever so little. “ I’m afraid it will be 
an ‘All Alone House ’ this summer,” she answered. “ I shall 
miss my little boy very much and the house will miss him too, 
I’m sure. No shouting, no laughing, and no noise.” 

“And no disorder,” his father laughed. 

When they reached the station they got right on the train, 
because Daddy had the tickets. 

“ I’d like some lunch,” said Colin. But his mother told him 
he would have to wait. 

It seemed hours before the train pulled out. “ Is the engine 
all right? Are we going? Is it almost time? Will we be 
late? ” he asked. 

It took all day to get to the little town where his grand¬ 
mother lived, and Colin was a tired little traveler long before 
they arrived, but he was good. For a long time he looked out 
of the window. How queer the outside behaved. The trees 
went marching around in great wide circles. That is, the trees 
way off did. Those closer to the track hurried by, but they 
didn’t race as the telegraph poles did. 

There were horses in fields, and cows. The cows did not 
even bother to look at the train, but almost always the horses 
threw up their heads and galloped across the field. Once a 
collie dog ran out from a farmhouse and raced along by the 
train. For a little while he kept up, running with his body 


17 


The All Alone House 

close to the ground, his tongue hanging out, and what was very- 
like a smile on his doggie face. Colin felt like cheering and 
was sorry when he fell behind. 

Near one station where the train stopped was a pen of 
sheep. They all looked alike and did not seem much bothered 
at being packed in so tight together. 

“ I’d like a lamb to play with,” Colin said. 

“ Perhaps your grandmother will get you one,” his mother 
said. “We always had pets, dozens of them. I remember 
once I had a red fox; he was quite tame and I used to keep 
him chained to a little house like a dog kennel. One night he 
got away and killed five chickens, and the next week when he 
came back for more, Henry shot him.” 

“ Where is Henry now? ” asked Colin. 

“ He still drives for Grandmother, but he is getting old.” 

“ Will I like Henry? ” asked Colin. 

“You will if you are good,” answered his mother. “ But 
Henry gets awfully cross about mischief. We used to get 
into plenty of it when I was little and sometimes Henry 
would not let us play in the barns.” 

At one station a woman got in with a little red dog in her 
arms. Colin looked longingly at the dog and finally the 
woman smiled at him. 

“ Would you like to pet the dog? ” she asked. 

Colin smiled back. “ If he isn’t growlish.” 

The woman laughed. “ He isn’t growlish,” she said, and 
for almost an hour Colin played with the friendly little dog. 

But before the end of the journey was reached a tired little 
boy cuddled up in his mother’s arms, where he lay contentedly 
with his head on her shoulder. 

“ Are we almost there? ” he asked. 


i8 


The All Alone House 


“ Almost,” his mother told him. 

Suddenly his father stood up. “ The next station,” he said, 
and began getting things together. 

Colin forgot that he was tired. He straightened up and 
found his hat and coat. He forgot the lunch-that-was-left and 
the funny paper his daddy had bought. He forgot the new 
book his mother had given him as a train surprise. His little 
face grew shiny with happiness and the sparkle in his eyes 
made his daddy’s eyes sparkle too. He smiled happily at 
his mother. 

“ I’m going to look out of the window until the train stops,” 
he said. “ Maybe all of my cousins will be there to meet me.”' 

His mother looked serious. She realized suddenly that 
if the little cousins were not there, Colin’s heart would be 
broken. 

“ Don’t be surprised if they are not,” she warned him. “ I 
really think Grandmother will not bring them all.” 

“ Won’t anybody meet me? ” Colin whispered with his lips 
quivering. 

“ Of course Grandmother will be there,” his mother said. 

The train began to slow down. Colin’s face was pressed 
tight against the window. 

“ Oh, Mother,” he cried, “ they aren’t! ” and his voice shook. 
It seemed to him as if he could not keep the tears back as he 
followed his father to the door. Not a little cousin in sight, 
and he had counted so much on seeing them all there. 

A man stepped forward to take their hags. He spoke to 
Colin’s mother. “ Miss Joan, I’m glad you are back. It has 
been a long time, Miss Joan.” 

Colin could see that the man liked his mother very much 
indeed and wondered who he was when the man turned to him. 


The All Alone House 


l 9 



“ But where are the cousins ! ” 























































20 


The All Alone House 


“ And you are Colin.” 

“ Yes,” said Colin, “ and who are you? ” 

“ I’m Roy,” said the man. 

“ Oh! I know all about you,” Colin replied. “ But where are 
the cousins? ” 

“ That is a surprise,” answered Roy. “ You’ll have to ask 
your grandmother. She is in the carriage.” 

Colin ran around the funny little station and there in a 
carriage sat his grandmother. Colin did not remember how 
dear she was or what a sweet smile she had. 

“ You precious lad,” she called and held out her arms. 

Colin climbed into the carriage and threw his arms about 
her neck. For a minute Grandmother could not speak and 
then she said: 

“Are you dreadfully disappointed not to find the children 
here? I just would not let them come. I wanted you all to 
myself this first half hour, and then I will give you to your 
cousins and probably see you only at meals and bedtimes the 
rest of the summer.” 

“ Where are the cousins? ” asked Colin. He was beginning 
to feel happier now that he knew they had not forgotten him. 

Grandmother smiled. “ That is a secret,” she said. 

Then his mother and father came and there was a lot of 
hugging and kissing and talking, but finally they were in 
the carriage and the bags were in and Roy was up in front 
with Henry, and the horses were trotting briskly toward 
home. 

Colin sat very close to his grandmother. “ Will I see the 
cousins this evening? ” he whispered to her. 

“ As soon as we reach home,” she whispered back. 

In front of a beautiful big house Henry spoke to the horses 


21 


The All Alone House 

and they slowed down to a walk. Colin was staring at the 
house and the wonderful lawns. To his city eyes it seemed 
like a park. 

“ Is this your house? ” he asked his grandmother. 

“ Yes, dear, and yours too for the whole summer,” she an¬ 
swered. 

“ I don’t see any children,” Colin said plaintively. 

“ Impatient One! ” laughed his grandmother. “ It is a sur¬ 
prise. They are all in the hall waiting for you.” 

Colin jumped down from the carriage when Henry stopped 
the horses by the great horse block and raced to the front 
doors. He pushed one of them open and stepped in. 

There in a solemn row stood six figures. They all had legs 
and feet, but in place of arms and heads they had great paper 
sacks with funny faces painted on them. 

Colin gasped. “ Are you my cousins? ” he asked. 

The six little figures bobbed their heads, but no one spoke. 

“ You must name them all,” said his grandmother behind 
him, “ and when you get the right name the bag will burst, 
and out will come your cousin.” 

Colin dashed to the littlest figure. “ I know you! You 
are Elizabeth Anne,” he shouted. 

The paper head shook slowly from side to side. 

“ Then you are Cara,” he cried excitedly, and the bag burst 
and a darling little girl with yellow hair and dimples threw 
her arms around his neck. 

“ Try another,” she cried. 

Colin marched to one of the big ones. “ I think you are 
Kenneth,” he said, and that bag burst too, and a boy with the 
friendliest smile in the world put out his hand and said, “ Hello, 
Colin.” 


22 The All Alone House 

They shook hands like two men and Colin turned to another 
sack. 

“ You’re Tommie,” he said. 

The head turned from side to side. 

“ Then you are Buster,” Colin went on. 

But the bag did not burst. 

“ You have to be one or the other,” Colin cried, “ there 
aren’t any more boys.” 

“ Try a girl’s name,” suggested Grandmother. 

“ But it is wearing boy’s knickers,” protested Colin. 

“ Never mind that,” laughed Grandmother. 

So Colin said “ Marcia ” and the bag burst to let out a very 
smiling Marcia. 

“ I put on boy’s clothes to fool you,” she said. 

The cousins were all guessed and had all broken out of their 
paper sacks and then Grandmother said: 

“ Now I have a little surprise. You are all going to stay 
for supper to celebrate Colin’s coming, and afterward we are 
going to play games until nine o’clock.” 

“ Oh, Grandmother,” they all cried together, “ you are a 
dear.” 

That was the happiest evening Colin had ever known. It 
was wonderful to be with so many joyful children and have 
them all in his very own family. He had had a rather lonely 
childhood and although he had many playmates, as he said to 
his mother, “ Not one of them really belongs to me.” 

At nine o’clock a radiant but tired little boy said good-night 
to his cousins. He kissed and hugged them all and made them 
promise to come to the Big House the very first thing in the 
morning, and when the door closed on their pleasant voices he 
turned to his mother. 


The All Alone House 23 

“ I never knew it was going to be so wonderful,” he cried 
happily. But suddenly he felt tired, and creeping into his 
mother’s arms realized that in spite of the happiness ahead of 
him, he was going to miss his mother and that she would be 
lonely without him. 

“ I don’t like to have you go back to the All Alone House 
and stay the whole summer without me,” he whispered. There 
were tears in his eyes, although he really was happy. 

“ Of course it will be lonely without you, dear,” his mother 
said; “ but if you miss me too much I’ll come up to see you, 
and if our house is too all-alonish, you can come home for a 
little visit.” 

That was like his mother, not to spoil his happiness, Colin 
thought, and it was like her to think of him more than herself. 

“ But now that I can write, I’ll send you a letter every 
week,” he said, “ and I will fill it with hugs and kisses.” 

“You might begin now by kissing us all good-night,” said 
his mother, and when he had hugged and kissed them all she 
led him away to bed and tucked him in to dream of the little 
cousins and the wonderful summer ahead of him. 












POTS OF PAINT 










POTS OF PAINT 

D OWN in the willow grove a small boy busied himself 
with three interesting looking pails. Dented they 
were, with splotches of colored paint on their sides. 
The little boy stirred busily at one and suddenly splashed a 
great blot of green paint on his hand. This he wiped off on 
his knickers and straightway forgetting all about it, rubbed his 
hand over his face. A long green streak appeared on his fore- 

27 





28 Pots of Paint 

head and the little boy settled down to his stirring. There 
Marcia found him. 

“ What ever are you doing, Colin? ” she cried. 

“ Hush! Can’t you? Don’t shout so loud.” 

“ Why? ” persisted Marcia. “ What ever is on your face 
and what is in the pail? ” 

“Paint,” answered Colin; and remembering something he 
had heard his father say, he went on, “And it has great possi¬ 
bilities.” 

“ What are possibilities? ” Marcia wanted to know. 

“ They are what’s in the paint,” Colin enlightened her. 

“ Whose paint is it? ” Marcia asked. 

“It is mine now, but it is going to be yours, and Tommie’s, 
and Cara’s, and Kenneth’s, and Buster’s, and Elizabeth Anne’s, 
and everybody’s.” Colin waved a generous hand. 

“ Perhaps I’d better get them all,” suggested Marcia. 

“ I was thinking about that,” Colin answered and settled 
down again to his stirring. 

Marcia disappeared through the closely woven branches 
down the little secret path the children had made, and Colin 
heard her give the call of “ coo-oo, coo-ee ” as she trotted up 
the hill beyond. 

Like little Indians the children began to gather in the willow 
grove, Kenneth and Buster squirming through the tall grass on 
their stomachs; not because it was any easier, but it was the 
proper way to approach. Indians did it that way, and long 
ago they had decided when they went to the willow grove 
they were Indians. Little white boys they might be until the 
shelter of that woody place was reached, and then quite by 
magic they were turned into red men. 

Buster did not stop to ask any questions. He looked at 


Pots of Paint 


*9 



There Marcia found him 











































30 Pots of Paint 

the streak of green paint on Colin’s face (by this time there 
was a lovely spot of yellow, too,) and breaking off a willow 
twig he peeled it and began stirring in another pail. 

“Who gave us the paint?” Kenneth asked. The children 
never spoke of one of them alone; they never said “ You ” or 
“ Me ” but always “ Us.” 

“ Well,” said Colin honestly, “ it wasn’t exactly given us, 
it was more lent. I kind of borrowed it.” 

“ Like Mr. Crow borrows things,” suggested Marcia. 

“ No, not just that,” Colin said hesitatingly. “ You see, 
Mr. Crow does not intend to return things, and we are going 
to return this, in a way.” 

“Are we? How? ” Tommie wanted to know. Colin 
stopped stirring. 

“ It is this way,” he told the interested group. “ You see, 
Grandmother bought quite a lot of paint. She is going to have 
the porch floors painted, and some furniture, and some things 
in the cellar, and I heard her say when the men brought the 
pails that she knew there was too much. So I borrowed three 
pails, one of each color.” 

“ Borrowed things have to be returned,” said Marcia in a 
good-little-girl-voice, “ and how can you return it if you use it 
all up? You’ve spent all of your allowance and you lost ten 
cents of Tommie’s that you have to pay back, so you can’t 
buy more.” 

Colin looked up with his sweetest smile. 

“ That,” he said, “ is all decided. We are going to return 
the paint in a sort of surprise way. We are going to do some 
painting for Grandmother.” 

“Oh!” the children cried together. “When can we be¬ 
gin?” 


3 1 


Pots of Paint 

“ Right now,” Colin told them. 

“ What shall we paint? ” they wanted to know, and Kenneth 
said: 

“ There is no use painting the things the men are hired to 
paint. Men are always so cross when they are interfered with. 
Let’s paint away from the house where we won’t be disturbed 
until we have finished.” 

Cara, who was younger, was quite impressed. 

“ Yes,” she echoed. “ Let’s not be dis-tur-bed. Let’s not 
be in-ter-fer-ed with.” 

“ We need brushes,” Buster announced. 

“ They are in the treasure chest,” Colin told him briefly. 

The treasure chest was an old wood stove. The top 
was filled with holes, but the children had nailed bits of 
tin over those and the door, which was without hinges, 
was tied on with what Kenneth claimed was the stoutest 
cord. 

Kenneth untied the door and reached in. He felt around 
with a perplexed expression on his face which changed to a 
wide grin as he drew forth a bundle. 

“ How ever did you get so many? ” he asked. 

“ I borrowed all of those we would need,” said Colin, “ be¬ 
cause they are so easily returned.” 

“ Is the paint all stirred? ” Tommie asked. “ I’d like to 
stir.” 

“ Get a stick,” Colin said. 

Tommie got a stick. He poked happily into the pot of red 
paint, wound it up like a watch and looked importantly at the 
girls. 

“ This is a man’s job,” he announced. 

That gave Marcia an idea. 


32 Pots of Paint 

“Aren’t we going to paint too? You boys can’t have all 
the fun.” 

“ Of course you are going to paint,” Colin told her. “ We’ll 
need you, because when we get started we’ll have to hurry. I 
mean we will have to finish before we are . . . before we 

are . . .” 

“ In-ter-fer-ed with,” suggested Cara. 

“ Well,” Colin admitted, “ perhaps it is that. Grown up 
people don’t always understand, and anyway I’d like to have 
the surprise finished before we tell them about it.” 

“ Yes, finished,” Marcia repeated. “ Mother always said 
to finish everything we began.” 

“ We will this,” Colin assured her. 

The paint was ready, the children lined up according to age, 
and the brushes were given out. Colin, who knew his littlest 
cousin, and feared a howl of protest when he gave her the 
smallest, brought a smile to her face by saying: 

“ It looks like the smallest brush, but it is the most impor¬ 
tant, because it is for the eyes.” 

Elizabeth Anne dimpled, “Am I going to paint the eyes?” 
she cried, and did a little dance. 

“ Look out! ” shrieked Tommie. “ There now, you have 
gone and done it,” for one dancing foot had struck the pot of 
paint. There was a cry from Elizabeth Anne as her slipper 
filled with green paint, and a shout from the boys who dived 
at the overturned pail and straightened it. Elizabeth Anne 
burst into tears. 

“Don’t howl,” Kenneth told her. “We saved the paint 
anyway.” 

“ My slipper is spoiled,” wept Elizabeth Anne. 

“ We’ll all look worse than that when we have finished,” 


Pots of Paint 33 

Marcia said truthfully. “ It is only one slipper anyway, so 
don’t worry.” 

“ Let’s go,” announced Colin, and Indian fashion they all 
filed out of the grove. 

For reasons best known to themselves the children gave the 
house a wide berth. Of course there was always Huldah who 
would see things not meant for her to see, and there was the 
old gardener, Roy, who had an annoying way of asking ques¬ 
tions. More than once he had spoiled well-laid plans, for he 
was a dreadful sort of grown-up with a stupid way of not 
understanding or approving. And also there was darling 
Grandmother. The surprise was for her, so of course it would 
not be right to have her know about it before it was done. 

“ The clover field will be the best way,” Colin announced. 
He had taken command of the affair, and his leadership was 
not questioned by the rest, who felt that his easy acquiring of 
the paint allowed him the privilege of directing the secret plan. 

“ Then where? ” Marcia asked. 

“ The barns,” Colin answered, and the children gave little 
gasps of pleasure. The barns passed their greatest hopes. 
They offered such unlimited possibilities for pots of paint. 
They were so much bigger than furniture, and so much more 
important than fruit cellars or porches. Also the man would 
not be there now. He would be at the house helping Huldah 
with the rugs, or the painters with the furniture. It did not 
much matter what he would be doing as long as he was out of 
the way. 

“ Are we going to paint the barns? ” asked Tommie. 

“ Not all of them,” Colin answered. 

“ I should say not,” Kenneth finished. “ Why, there are 
three of them; for the horses, and carriages, and the cows. 


34 Pots of Paint 

Gracious! that would take us just ages; we’d never get 
through.” 

“Anyway, they don’t need painting, all of ’em,” Tommie 
went on. “ Say, Colin, what are we going to do? ” 

But Colin marched on importantly until the shelter of the 
carriage barn had been reached. There he put his pot of paint 
on the ground, and faced the rest. 

“ I’ve always thought the walls of these barns were ter¬ 
ribly bare,” he told them. “ White brick is such a ‘ homebly ’ 
color.” 

“ It hasn’t any expression,” Marcia said thoughtfully. “ It 
is like Aunt Sally when she doesn’t want you to know what 
she is thinking.” 

“ It looks like castor oil to me,” Tommie said. 

“ Oh, don’t! ” the rest cried together, and Kenneth looked 
crossly at him and said: 

“ You know we never mention castor oil or spankings, 
Tommie. You mustn’t.” 

“ I forgot,” said Tommie apologetically. 

“ Let’s forget that and get on with the painting,” Buster 
said. “ Where will we begin? ” 

“At the bottom,” Tommie suggested, but Colin interrupted. 

“ No, the walls don’t need to be covered. It will be more 
interesting to do pictures, and Grandmother will be more sur¬ 
prised. I’ve been thinking about the pictures and I think it 
would be nice to have them connected; not just little separate 
things, but something that will run around the barn and meet 
itself coming hack and look as if it should meet itself.” Here 
he waited a minute to let the full beauty of his thought sink 
in with his delighted audience, and then went on impressively, 
“And what I have decided to do is Indians.” 


Pots of Paint 3$ 

The gasp of surprise that greeted this was all and more than 
Colin had expected. 

“ They are going to be tall, very tall,” he announced. “ We’ll 
have to do the heads with a ladder, and some are going to have 
war bonnets.” 

“ What kind of bonnets are those? ” Cara asked. 

“ With feathers in them and hanging down,” Kenneth an¬ 
swered. “ I know how to draw them.” 

“ The feathers will be green and yellow,” Colin decided, 
“ and the Indians red.” 

“All red? ” Marcia wanted to know. “ We won’t have 
enough paint.” 

“ We’ll just draw the outsides, and then there’ll be plenty of 
red paint, and we can make their tommy-hawks yellow and 
their shoes green,” Colin told her. 

“ Indians don’t wear shoes,” Buster said. 

“ These will have to, and we can play they’ve been walking 
in the grass and got stained like I grass-stained my white suit, 
and make their feet green. That will save red.” 

“ I’ll get a ladder,” said Tommie. 

“ Splendid!” cried the children, and set to work. 

The long summer afternoon wore on. The sun beat down 
and the children grew hot and tired. But still they worked 
like little beavers, grunting and painting, stopping only when 
some hitherto undiscovered talent came to light. There 
was one full halt in the work when Buster, on the top of the 
ladder, drew a wonderful war bonnet with very real looking 
feathers growing out of it, and wampum beads covering the 
head band. The children gathered below in an admiring 
group. 


36 Pots of Paint 

“ It’s simply beautiful,” breathed Cara. And Marcia, quite 
overcome, said: 

“ It’s perfect. Now if you can only draw a face as good.” 

“ I can,” boasted Buster proudly, and straightway did it. 

“ Oh! ” cried Colin. “ Won’t Grandmother be surprised? ” 

The pictures grew and grew, the circle grew and grew, and 
the Indians danced in delightful procession around the white 
brick walls. Also the splotches of paint on the children grew 
and grew. 

“ You look so funny with that yellow paint in your brown 
hair,” Buster told Marcia. 

“And you look funny with your nose all green and your ear 
red,” Marcia answered. “Anyway, you dropped the yellow 
paint on my head.” 

“ You’re nothing compared with me,” said Colin. “ My suit 
is covered.” 

“ And my shoes are full,” Cara cried. 

“Hurry up! we’re almost through,” interrupted Buster. 
“ We’re all covered anyway; what else could we expect? ” 

It was five o’clock when the last Indian danced up behind 
the first one and the children stood back to get the full effect of 
their hard work. It was certainly marvelous, quite stupen¬ 
dous, and more showy than they had dared to hope. 

They sat in a painty little row on a grassy bank and looked 
proudly at their Indians. War bonnets, feathers, tomahawks, 
moccasins, belts, hatchets, blankets and bows and arrows. How 
beautifully complete it all was. 

“ I never thought we could do it,” Colin whispered in a tired 
little voice. 

“ It does seem an awful lot,” Buster answered. 

“ We kept right at it, “ Marcia explained. And the proud 


Pots of Paint 37 

little row sat in dreamy contemplation of the afternoon’s work, 
admiring the splendid Indians on the highly artistic walls. No 
one spoke and no one moved. 

It was Roy who broke in on their reverie. He came from the 
house with his eyes fastened on the richly decorated barn. 
There was an astonished expression on his face. He looked as 
if he could not believe something, and yet as if he did believe it 
after all. As he neared the bam he began to run, still looking 
at the walls. Suddenly he fell over a stone. The children 
were watching him. 

“ It was as big as a trunk,” Colin said contemptuously. “ He 
should have seen it. Now he’ll be awfully cross.” 

But Roy got up as if he had not noticed the stone. He did 
not stop to brush himself off. His eyes were still glued to the 
barn. The children could hear him talking to himself in 
queer little jerky sentences. Now they could understand his 
words. 

“ It warn’t that-a-way this morning,” he was muttering. 
“ Them Indians wasn’t in sight this noon. The whole thing’s 
covered . . . red . . . green . . . and yella . . . 
Gosh! ” 

He stood in front of the children staring at the barn, his 
eyes perfectly round with amazement. The children did not 
move or speak. They were enjoying in a tired way this tribute 
to their work. 

“ It’s wonderful,” Roy said at last. 

“Yes, isn’t it?” Colin answered him, and Roy turned; his 
astonished gaze took in the painty group. He looked at the 
brushes in their hands, at the empty pots of paint at their feet. 
His eyes went back to the barn and suddenly light broke in 
upon him. 


38 Pots of Paint 

“ Did you do that? ” he gasped, waving an arm at the In¬ 
dians. 

“ Yes,” Buster answered, “ and it was hard work too.” 

Roy took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back 
of his hand. 

“ It must have been,” he agreed. 

“ We had just enough paint,” Colin assured him. 

“ I’ll say you had too much,” Roy answered, and still stared 
at the walls. 

“ What do you think of it? ” Marcia asked. 

“ I ain’t thinkin’,” Roy answered. “ I can’t. Has your 
grandmother saw it yit? ” 

“ No,” Colin told him. “ It is to surprise her.” 

“ It will,” Roy agreed briefly. 

“ Well, what do you think? ” Marcia insisted. “You must 
be thinking something. You can’t just stand there not think¬ 
ing. People are always thinking something.” 

Roy turned. His eyes took in the entire painty row; then 
he looked at each child quite steadily. They began to feel 
uneasy. 

“Oh!” said Colin crossly, “say something. Don’t just 
stand and stare like that.” 

“ Well,” said Roy slowly. “ You wanted to know what I 
thought. What I thought and am still thinkin’ is, I’m glad I 
ain’t you,” and he went on into the barn. 

“ That was a funny thing to say,” Buster remarked. “ It did 
not sound encouraging.” 

“ No,” echoed Cara, “ it did not sound en-cour-a-ging.” 

Marcia stood up. “ I think I’ll be going home,” she an¬ 
nounced. “ There may be something I can do to help 
Mother.” And Buster stood up with her. 


Pots of Paint 


39 

“ I promised to carry in some birch wood for the grate,” he 
said. “ I’d better be going too.” 

Cara took Marcia’s hand. “ I want to pick up my toys,” she 
said, and Kenneth started off brushing at the paint on his 
knickers. 

“ I wish I’d been more careful of my clothes,” he stated to 
no one in particular. 

The brushes lay on the ground forgotten, the empty pots of 
paint rolled down the bank, and the now serious children moved 
away. It was Colin who broke the silence. 

“ Well, s’long! See you in the morning.” 

“ Maybe,” said Marcia. She had a sense of impending trou¬ 
ble. 

“ I dunno,” said Buster. He too had the same feeling. 
They went on silently to the driveway where they stood for a 
minute. 

“Well, s’long!” Colin said again. He didn’t know what 
else to say. 

“ S’long!” the others answered and he stood watching the 
paint smeared little figures as they trudged down the road and 
out of sight. 

In the library of the Big House the Grown-ups sat. In 
Grandmother’s bedroom a quiet, frightened group of Small 
Persons waited like prisoners in court to hear their sentence. 
The Grown-ups had been a long time in the library. It seemed 
weeks to the children since the doors had closed on their serious 
faces and the hum of talk without words had begun to drift 
back to the bedroom prison. And it seemed years since the 
Indians had been painted on the white barn walls. Only two 
days before, and what dreadful days. Roy had told Huldah, 


40 


Pots of Paint 

and Hulclah had told Grandmother. But in the light of things 
that followed the children could not blame Roy or Huldah. 

“We wanted Grandmother to know,” Colin said honestly. 
“ So we can’t blame them for telling.” 

“ They might have let us tell,” protested Marcia. “ It was 
our surprise for Grandmother.” 

“ Well,” remarked Buster, “ Grandmother knows, and so do 
our aunts and uncles and fathers and mothers and all of our 
relations, and everybody in this old town, I guess. So it does 
not matter who told or how they found out.” 

“And anyway,” said Colin with a reminiscent look in his 
eyes, “ we are in trouble enough without having Roy; and 
Huldah mad at us.” 

“ Yes,” agreed the others, “ we are.” 

The hum of voices from the library went on and on. The 
children grew more serious. Elizabeth Anne put out a paint 
covered slipper. Suddenly she began to cry. 

“ Oh, don’t! ” Kenneth said with a kind of rough sympathy. 
“ Don’t let’s get crying. We may as well be brave about it.” 

“ Mother says I’ve got to wear it until the paint wears off,” 
Elizabeth Anne sobbed. 

“ You can rub it on the cement walk,” Marcia told her and 
they were all silent again. 

After a long time the door to the bedroom opened. It was 
Colin’s father who had come the night before. Colin could not 
understand what dreadful coincidence had brought him at this 
time. 

“ We are ready for you children now,” was all he said; and 
they filed reluctantly into the library. 

Not a word from the Grown-ups. The children found seats 
and waited. This was worse than they had feared. The 


Pots of Paint 41 

naughty little painters hung their heads and still no word from 
the Grown-ups. Minutes passed. The clock on the mantel 
ticked on and on. Buster found a funny little thought running 
through his head in time to the ticks “ Bad-boy . . . Bad-boy 
. . . Bad-boy,” the clock seemed almost to be saying the 

words. He wondered if the others heard it. Finally Colin 
looked up. His father was watching him with a grave ex¬ 
pression. Colin looked at his grandmother. She met his eyes 
with eyes that weren’t angry. Colin couldn’t understand. He 
looked at her mouth and suddenly he did understand. Grand¬ 
mother wasn’t angry. She did not look cross; she looked sad, 
dreadfully sad. She was disappointed in him. He had been 
naughty and had made the others naughty, too. He had bor¬ 
rowed things that could not be returned, he had wasted paint 
and spoiled the beautiful white walls of the barn, and still his 
darling Grandmother was not angry. She was just sad and 
hurt and kind. Oh! so kind. A great big lump came into his 
throat. His heart ached and ached and his eyes were blinded 
with tears. He launched himself at his grandmother and 
flung himself on her breast. 

“Grandmother! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please forgive 
me. I love you such lots and I’ve made you unhappy. Please 
punish me, but don’t look at me with that awful hurt in your 
eyes. Oh, Grandmother dear! ” 

The tender arms closed about him. He buried his face in 
the dear neck and cried on and on. The other children cried 
silently and still no word was spoken by the Grown-ups. 
Colin’s sobs grew less violent, but his arms around his grand¬ 
mother’s neck did not loosen their hold. Finally he whispered: 

“ I won’t mind being punished if you’ll only forgive me.” 

“ Dear little boy,” his grandmother answered, “ I have for- 


42 Pots of Paint 

given you, and you’ve had punishment enough.” Colin raised 
his tear-stained face to hers and saw her nod at the others, and 
then buried his face in her neck again. After a long time he 
looked up once more. There was no one in the room but his 
grandmother and his father. He slid from his grand¬ 
mother’s lap and walked with determined little steps to his 
father. 

“ I’m ready for that spanking,” he said courageously. 

“ Your grandmother does not want you spanked or punished 
at all,” his father told him, and his grandmother went on: 

“ My little boy is not going to be naughty again I know. 
There is a long happy summer ahead of you if you are good, 
but if you are going to do naughty things you will have to go 
back to your home. Away from the Big House, away from 
your cousins and playmates, away from the beautiful lake and 
all the things you love.” 

“ And you too? ” Colin asked. 

“ And me,” his grandmother answered. 

A little boy sat in the willow grove and called “ Coo-oo, 
Coo-ee.” Presently three squirming figures made their way 
through the long grass. Not long after Marcia crept in fol¬ 
lowed by Cara, and then Elizabeth Anne appeared. They 
all sat cross-legged in a ring and for a long time said nothing. 
Finally Buster spoke. 

“ Let’s put that paint day with the castor oil and spank¬ 
ings.” 

“And never mention them,” Tommie finished. 

Colin’s face flushed. “ I’m so ashamed,” he said honestly. 

“ I’d be ashamed not to be ashamed,” Marcia said. 

The golden rays of the afternoon sun shone through the 


Pots of Paint 


43 


willow branches, making queer prancing shadows around the 
children, and flickering golden lights danced on their little 
heads and faces. After all it was a beautiful world. The 
wonderful summer lay ahead of them; there were going to be 
good and happy and the Grown-ups weren’t going to be 
ashamed of them again. They had been forgiven and were 
enjoying the peace that forgiveness brings, and quite silently 
they sat in a contented little circle with the warm bright rays of 
the sun dancing about them. 



THE REBELLION OF REX 











THE REBELLION OF REX 

A PICTURE in a magazine started it. The picture was 
of a happy little boy and girl, each sitting proudly in 
a cart drawn by a happy eager dog. 

“ Very waggish and smilish,” Elizabeth Anne said. 

The children were fascinated by the pictures, and the story 
too. It seemed a shame they did not have a dog-horse to pull 
them about. 

“ Let’s harness Rex,” Kenneth suggested. “ He’s big 
enough to pull us all.” 

“ He’s too lazy,” said Buster. “ He won’t do a thing but 
plant himself down in the middle of the road and pant and not 
budge. And he’s too big to push.” 

Rex was. He was the handsomest son of a gentle mama 
47 






























48 The Rebellion of Rex 

Mastiff and a big papa St. Bernard, and he had inherited from 
his father a wonderfully sweet disposition, and from his mother 
a size that made him quite the thing for a lion in a circus, 
or a pretend elephant. But his possibilities as a horse had 
never occurred to the children until they saw the pictures in 
the magazine that came once a month to Marcia and Cara. 

“We might try anyway,” said Marcia. 

Tommie got up. “ I know where there is some stout cord,” 
he said. 

“ Cord won’t do,” Buster told him. “ Let’s have a really 
harness. There are plenty of straps in the barn that Henry 
will let us have, and we can cut them to fit and get Grand¬ 
mother to give us big needles to sew them together.” 

“ We never can. Leather is dreadfully tough. We’d prick 
our hands so they’d hurt for a week,” Marcia said. 

“Well then, we’ll punch holes with the harness punch and 
tie them together. Get the cord, Tommy. I’ll ask Henry,” 
Buster said. 

Henry was the old coachman who had been working for 
Grandmother for years and years, ever since the parents of the 
cousins were as small as the cousins themselves. He had seen 
several crowds of small persons come and go, and he knew just 
what damage they could do to a nice tidy barn, if they were 
allowed free rein in their play. 

Kenneth got up. “ Perhaps two of us had better ask 
Henry,” he suggested. “ The last time I went to the barn 
alone, he wasn’t so glad to see me. Somebody had left the door 
open and the horses got in with the bran sacks and they were 
all swollen and sick for two days. Henry had to get the 
doctor, and he said all of the horses might have died.” 

“ But they didn’t,” said Elizabeth Anne. “ So what’s the 


The Rebellion of Rex 49 

use of worrying about that? Anyway, the old horses must 
have pushed the door open; they must have smelled the bran 
and pushed the door open all by themselves. We can’t be 
blamed for everything, can we? ” 

“ No,” said the others. 

“ But we are,” Kenneth remarked philosophically. 

“ Most everything,” admitted the others in resigned voices. 

Henry was in the friendliest frame of mind. Sure he’d get 
some straps for the children. Yes, they could use the harness 
punch if they’d return it, and he’d help them cut the straps the 
right length. The children were delighted. It was an un¬ 
heard of thing to get help from Henry. They never hoped to 
get more than his permission, but he was strangely interested 
this time and kindly. The children never did understand it 
and talked it over many times after. 

“ He helped us right to the end,” Elizabeth Anne said, “ until 
the harness was finished.” 

“ He’s interested in harnesses. It was the first time we were 
interested in the same thing,” was the way Kenneth reasoned it 
out. 

“ Well, haven’t we always been interested in the bam and 
the horses and everything down there? ” Tommie wanted to 
know. 

“ Not exactly the same way,” Colin said truthfully. “ This 
way we’re making something together.” 

“And the other way we were just making trouble,” finished 
Marcia, and there did not seem to be anything more to be 
said. 

Grandmother laughed when they told her Rex was going to 
be a horse. “ He’s been everything else,” she said, “ and he 
may as well be a horse now. But don’t impose upon him. He 


5o The Rebellion of Rex 

is so good-natured that you children are inclined to ask too 
much of him.” 

The harness was finished. It fitted like a regular store-made 
harness. There was a strap to go over his head and long tugs 
to fasten to the cart. There was a sort of bridle, more a 
halter, because Rex just would not have bits in his mouth. 
And there was a band around his body; not because it was 
needed, but because real harness had bands to go around bodies. 

Rex was resigned. He knew down in his doggie heart that 
it would not last long, and he loved the children too well to 
refuse to play horse with them. 

“We can have Pat and Sandy for colts,” Cara suggested. 

Pat looked sad. He was a sad-faced hound anyway. His 
natural expression bespoke the greatest woe. His outlook on 
life was a dreary one, and the only time he showed any interest 
or enthusiasm was when the children roused him from a deep 
sleep by shouting, “Rabbits! Pat! Rabbits! Sic ’em!” 
Then he would spring to his feet with a wagging tail and burst 
into a long joyous howl. But when he found that he had been 
deceived and that there were no rabbits, his face would sink 
back into its usual long-lined depression and his tail would 
droop dejectedly and his eyes would fill with a pathetic sadness. 

“ He can be tied on one side and Sandy on the other,” the 
children decided. 

But Sandy rebelled. He wouldn’t be tied to the side of 
anything. He flattened out on his stomach and put his face 
on his paws and looked at the children with resentful eyes. 
Sandy was an Airedale, all bristly like a porcupine. He loved 
racing with the children and would chase sticks as long as they 
would throw them. He would sit up and jump through a 
hoop and do other tricks, and he was always in great demand 


The Rebellion of Rex 51 

as a clown when the children had a circus. But now he just 
would not be tied to the cart and pulled along as a colt. 

“ Let’s try coaxing him,” Marcia said. “ We’ll get some 
cookies.” 

Sandy ate the cookies with evident enjoyment and then 
flattened out on his stomach again. 

“ Oh! Come on, Sandy! ” Tommie shouted in exasperation. 
“ Please play.” 

But Sandy wouldn’t budge. 

“ Look at him with his cross old face planted on his paws,” 
said Buster. 

“ It looks like a shredded wheat biscuit,” Marcia answered. 
“I’d like to whack him.” 

“ It wouldn’t do any good,” Kenneth told her. “ He’d only 
get more sulky. I’ll tell you what. He can be a riding horse 
and gallop alongside.” And Sandy, untied, galloped along 
with a wagging tail and flopping ears. 

That day rolled by on golden wheels for the children. Be¬ 
fore they knew it it was time for lunch, and then so very soon 
after it was time for the little cousins to go home and for Colin 
to have his supper and get ready for bed. 

“ We’ll drive him again to-morrow,” they agreed. 

Rex heard, and his faithful doggie heart sank. This was 
awful! Generally the children were tired of a game after 
playing it one day, and Rex had long since made up his mind 
that he would stand anything for one day. But to be a horse 
two days, to wear that dreadful harness and to drag the chil¬ 
dren about in a squeaking rumbling cart, he just wouldn’t! 
that was all. Sandy and Pat didn’t have to do it, Sandy didn’t 
even have to be a colt and be tied alongside. Rex lay down on 
the front lawn, his head on his paws, and tried to think. He 


52 The Rebellion of Rex 

was too tired even to walk around to the kitchen to ask Cook 
for a bone. He just wanted to rest and hope that his duties as 
a horse were over. He lay full length on the grass and looked 
steadily ahead. Suddenly the front door opened. It was 
Colin. 

“ Here, Rex,” he said. “ Here is a great big bone, a fine, 
juicy lamb bone, and Cook has a bowl of bread and milk for 
you. Come on, Rex, good doggie.” 

Rex got to his feet. 

“ Come on,” Colin coaxed, and Rex followed him to the 
kitchen where a good supper of bread and milk waited him in 
his bowl in the corner. Rex lapped it up hungrily while Colin 
stood by holding the bone. “ Here’s the rest,” said Colin, hold¬ 
ing it out. Rex took it gently and Colin stooped to put his 
arms about the dear soft neck. “ You’re a good kind doggie,” 
he whispered, “ and I’ll give you a big bone every day.” Rex 
wagged his tail and with the bone in his mouth went out under 
the trees in the garden to gnaw on it and growl over it to his 
heart’s content. 

The big lawns were silvery in the moonlight, and owls hooted 
from near-by woods. Crickets chirped, and little night things 
sang scratchy songs to each other. The children Avere all in 
their beds and sleeping soundly when Rex decided to stop 
gnawing his bone and to find a safe spot where it could be 
buried. Rex loved bones that had been buried for a few days, 
and always when he had chewed all of the meat from a nice 
new bone he dug a little hole in the ground and planted it so 
that it would grow more tender. He knew a splendid place 
behind the greenhouse where the children’s grandmother raised 
lovely flowers. It was a place unknown to the other dogs, and 


The Rebellion of Rex 53 

Rex was sure to find his bones there when he was ready to dig 
them up. He trotted around the corner of the greenhouse 
and presently there was a sound of digging, and a little later 
with his white nose covered with brown dirt, he trotted back 
to the gardens to rest in the moonlight. 

There Pat found him. Pat was out of breath and his tongue 
was hanging out. 

“ Where have you been? ” Rex asked him. (Dogs can talk 
to each other quite as well as little boys and girls, and they 
have an advantage over little boys and girls, because they can 
understand human talk. But no humans can understand 
doggie talk.) 

Pat sank in a tired heap. “ Everywhere,” he panted. “ I 
started a rabbit down in the willow grove, and he ran to the 
woods way south. I almost had him twice, but he ducked 
under a fence and I had to run yelping around until I found 
a hole to squeeze through, and by that time he was fifty yards 
ahead of me.” 

“ I should think you would be tired and sick of chasing rab¬ 
bits,” Rex said scornfully. “ You have never caught one.” 

“ I can always hope to catch one anyway,” panted Pat. 

“ It seems a silly way for a dog to spend his time,” Rex went 
on with his great dignified nose in the air. 

“ It would be a silly way for you to spend your time, but it 
isn’t for me, because I am a rabbit dog,” Pat said. 

“ I had not thought of that,” Rex answered thoughtfully. 
“ Where’s Sandy? ” 

“ I’ll call him,” said Pat, and putting his nose in the air he 
gave a long-drawn-out howl that floated across the lawns and 
meadows like the howl of a wolf. “ S-a-a-a-a-a-annn-dy,” he 
yowled. 


54 


The Rebellion of Rex 

Off in the distance they heard an answering howl and in a 
minute it sounded nearer. 

“ He’s coming,” said Pat, “ and I think he has something in 
his mouth; it sounds kind of full.” 

It was. Sandy, the naughty, had been robbing ice-boxes. 
The first one had only cold corn on the cob, some butter, a 
saucer of cold potatoes, and a bottle of olives in it. “ Scarcely 
worth scratching open,” Sandy said. But the second had a 
great juicy roast of beef, and except for a few little bites out 
of it (Sandy was so hungry he just couldn’t resist those), he 
had brought it straight to his friends. 

“ You shouldn’t steal, Sandy,” Rex protested. 

“ Oh! Bah! ” said Pat. “ Don’t preach. We are only dogs; 
pitch in and enjoy the roast,” and good old Rex, now as bad as 
the robber-Sandy, pitched in and enjoj^ed his share. 

The feast was over and the dogs talked about the children. 

“ They are dears,” Rex said, “ and I love to play with them.” 

“ You had plenty of that to-day,” Pat assured him. “ I 
thought they overdid the horse idea a little.” 

“ I was tired,” admitted Rex. 

“ The greater goose you,” Sandy told him. “ Why do you 
do it? You don’t have to.” 

“ Well, what can I do?” Rex wanted to know. “ I can’t 
growl at them. That would frighten them and I wouldn’t do 
that for worlds. I can’t bite them when they are in my care; 
anyway, I love them too much.” 

“ Simply don’t play,” advised Sandy. “ Do as I do. 
Flatten out on your stomach and don’t move.” 

“Yes, and then they sit all over me,” Rex told him. 

“Are we going to be horses and colts and galloping things 
to-morrow? ” Pat wanted to know. 


The Rebellion of Rex 55 

“ I heard them say so,” Rex answered gloomily. 

“Well, I won’t!” Sandy announced. “If they begin at 
me again in the morning I’ll growl terribly at them.” 

“And if you do, I’ll shake you until your collar falls off,” 
Rex answered. “ That is one thing that will never be done to 
my children.” 

“ I really didn’t mean it,” Sandy apologized. 

“ Better not,” Rex advised. 

“ It was no fun for me to be tied to a cart and play I was 
a foolish colt,” Pat said. “ But it must have been awful for 
you, Rex. Of course you are three times as big as I am, but 
pulling those children all over town in a cart was not so easy. 
All morning, and all afternoon! Wow! I thought my paws 
would drop off.” 

“ They’ll begin early in the morning,” Rex sighed. 

“ It serves you right for being such a success,” Sandy said 
a little crossly. 

“ It didn’t hurt me for one day,” Rex went on. “ But hon¬ 
estly, I’d hate to play horse all day to-morrow.” 

“ We’ll hate it as much as you,” Pat assured him, and the 
three dogs lay silent in the moonlight for a time, half dozing in 
sleepy content. A sudden yelp from Pat roused them. 

“ What is the matter? ” Sandy asked. 

But Pat couldn’t answer. He rolled over and over in the 
grass, and barked little short joyous barks. He licked his 
chops and wagged his tail, and finally stood up and bounced 
straight up and down. 

“ You seem awfully pleased over something,” Rex said. 
“ What is it? ” 

“A grand idea,” Pat said. “ I have thought it all out and 
this is what we are going to do. If the children begin playing 


56 The Rebellion of Rex 

horse right after breakfast we’ll be good and play, and we’ll 
be anything they want, from zebras to camels.” (Pat had once 
crawled under a circus tent and had learned quite a lot about 
strange animals before he was thrown out.) “ I’ll trot on one 
side of the cart and Sandy will trot on the other. Yes, you 
will, Sandy,” he said emphatically; for Sandy had made a 
growlish sort of noise down in his throat. “And Rex can be 
a horse and work like three horses, until noon. We won’t 
lie down and be stubborn once. But after lunch, if the children 
begin all over again, Rex is going to rebel.” 

“ How? ” Rex asked. He was interested. 

“ You are going to go mad.” 

“ Am I? How? ” Rex asked again. 

“ Well,” said Pat, “ I’ve thought it all out.” And he 
moved nearer. Sandy crawled up and lay with his nose close 
to Pat’s. Rex moved closer and the whispering went on and 
on. Once in a while one of the dogs would wag his tail thump- 
ishly on the ground, and twice Rex put his paws over his mouth 
so that his happy yelps could not be heard. The moon went 
down, and the night birds rocked themselves to sleep in their 
nests before Pat finished telling his wonderful plan. 

Rex stood up. “ I’m going to crawl under the porch to get 
some sleep,” he said. “ You dogs had better get some too. 
You’ll be up with the children in the morning, then? ” 

“ Yes,” they both barked and raced away. 

The children did begin very early in the morning. Colin 
had not finished his breakfast when the first “ coo-oo coo-ee ” 
was heard outside. It was Kenneth and Buster, with Sandy 
between them with a strap tied to his collar. 

“We are going to play horse again, aren’t we? ” they 


The Rebellion of Rex 57 

shouted when Colin appeared at the door. “ Sandy is so 
good.” And Kenneth added, “ I don’t know what is the matter 
with him, but he minds as soon as we speak to him, and he 
didn’t lag behind a bit when we pulled him with the strap.” 

“ Perhaps he’ll be a colt,” Colin suggested. (Sandy’s nose 
twitched.) “ Anyway, we’ll try him.” 

“Where is the harness?” Kenneth cried. “Oh! Goodie! 
Here come the rest,” and the four cousins raced up. 

Then began a day of greatest pleasure for the children and 
greatest exhaustion for the dogs. Rex was still a horse, but 
should have been two horses, for the load he was made to pull 
was a heavy one. The children all piled into the cart and Rex 
trudged up and down hills, around the lawns, and back and 
forth from one cousin’s home to another, until he was so tired 
it seemed as if he could not drag one paw after the other. 

Sandy tied to one side of the cart and Pat to the other hung 
out their tongues and panted. But they did not flatten out and 
act stubborn. They trotted on willingly wherever Rex led. 

At noon the children unharnessed the dogs. 

“Haven’t they been good doggies?” Marcia said. “And 
because they are so good, we’ll play with them the whole after¬ 
noon. Let’s hurry with our dinners; this is such a wonderful 
game.” 

“ Well, they won’t play with us this afternoon,” growled 
Sandy when the children had disappeared into the house. 
“ Rex, if they put that harness on you again, you’ve got to go 
mad.” 

“ I will,” promised Rex. “ I couldn’t drag an acorn shell 
if I was harnessed to it now. I’m all in.” 

“ Those dreadful cart wheels scraped me a dozen times. My 
sides and hips are all sore,” Pat went on. “ It’s time we fright- 


58 The Rebellion of Rex 

ened those children. As long as we are good and patient they 
will go on imposing upon us. For three hours we have pat¬ 
tered around the streets, looking no end silly and feeling sillier. 
Well, now it’s over. I’m through! ” 

“ It is! ” said Pat and Rex together. “ So are we.” 

Right after dinner the children raced out. “ Get the har¬ 
ness,” they shouted happily to one another. “ We’ll play all 
the afternoon.” 

Pat backed away and sat down. Sandy followed suit, and 
they both watched with interested eyes while the children got 
the straps. 

“ We’ll drive first to the candy store and then home and 
then down to your house, Marcia,” Colin said. “ And after 
that we’ll let our horse trot up and down the street with us.” 

The children all got into the cart. 

“ Go on, Rex,” they cried. Rex didn’t move. 

“ Nice doggie, go on and run,” cried Tommie who was driv¬ 
ing. 

Rex didn’t move. 

“ Hit him with the switch,” Kenneth suggested. 

Tommie used the switch, and still Rex didn’t move. Tom¬ 
mie used it again and this time harder, and then something 
happened. 

Rex gave a great leap into the air that upset the cart and 
spilled the children in all directions. He stood for a minute 
with his four legs planted far apart and then gave another 
leap. 

“ Woof! ” he barked. “ Woof! Woof! ” 

“ Oh! ” screamed Marcia, “ he’s going mad. Run! ” 

“Woof!” barked Rex again, and whirled in a circle with 
the cart pounding after. Pie stopped to put his nose to the 


The Rebellion of Rex 


59 



“ We’ll drive first to the candy store ” 











































































6o 


The Rebellion of Rex 

grass and whine piteously. Another leap and he flattened out 
on the ground with his paws over his ears. Off came the halter. 
He raised his nose and howled long and dismally. 

The frightened children raced to the porch. 

Then quite suddenly Rex began to bark. Short terrible 
barks. This kept up for some time and as suddenly he stopped 
and bounced up and down in one spot, jerking the cart up and 
down after him. Thud! thud! went Rex, and thud! thud! went 
the cart. The front wheels came off and Rex began going 
around in great boundy circles. His big white tail swung 
’round and ’round, his long ears flapped up and down, his paws 
went paddy! paddy! on the cement walk and always he whined 
a sort of singsong whine. 

Pat and Sandy backed up another foot or two and sat down 
with their eyes glued on the whirling Rex. 

“ He’s gone quite mad, and we are to blame,” Colin sobbed. 
“ Someone get Grandmother quick.” But not one of the fas¬ 
cinated children moved. 

And then Rex stood still. Pat approached him with un¬ 
certain steps. “ Gr-r-r-r-r,” growled Rex and snapped. Pat 
fell back over Sandy who was following, and both dogs backed 
up and sat down again. 

Another long howl from Rex, and then began the most as¬ 
tonishing performance the children had ever seen. Rex put 
his head on the ground and stood on it, both hind legs in the 
air. For just a second he balanced and then went over all the 
way, the wheels of the broken cart whacking after. One jump 
in the air and again he started the fancy circles, ’round and 
’round and ’round, leaping, jumping, and howling, a confu¬ 
sion of frothy muzzle and swinging tail, waving paws and cart 
wheels. 


6i 


The Rebellion of Rex 

The tugs broke and the wheels rolled away. 

“ Yip! yip! yip! ” wailed Rex. Another frantic series of 
stiff-legged jumps and he dashed for the porch and disap¬ 
peared under it. 

Sandy stood on his four feet. “ Yow! Yow! Yow!” he 
howled. 

Pat jumped into the air. “ Gr-r-r-r ow! ” he barked. 

“ They’ve gone mad too,” screamed the children. 

A long-drawn-out howl came from under the porch, and Pat 
and Sandy dashed down the lawn with terrified leaps an<j shot 
over the bank beyond. 

The crying, frightened children rushed into the house. 
“ Grandmother! ” they screamed. “ Rex has gone mad! and so 
has Pat and so has Sandy!” And in a confusion of tears 
and muffled words they told her what had happened. “ And 
now he is under the porch probably dying, and it’s all our 
fault.” 

Grandmother soothed her frightened flock. “ I’ll go out and 
look under the porch. You all stay here,” she said. 

Quite calmly she approached the stone arch of the porch. 
“ Rex, you scamp, are you there? ” she called. A thudding tail 
on the ground told her he was. “ Come out, you rascal,” she 
said, and a white muzzle appeared and a long red tongue licked 
her hand. 

“ Did you get a little too much attention from the children, 
Old Dog? ” the children’s grandmother went on. “ I don’t 
blame you for going mad. But you frightened them terribly.” 
She pulled his ear gently and he wagged a shamed tail. “ I 
wondered how long you would stand being a horse, and I won¬ 
dered too how you would end it. It never occurred to me you 
would go mad.” 


62 


The Rebellion of Rex 



Rex whined softly and licked her hand again. 

“ And I’ll wager you put Sandy and Pat up to it, too. Poor 
old doggie, they about used you up, didn’t they? ” and again 
the red tongue licked her hand gently. 

“ You stay under the porch and get a good rest,” the dear 
understanding grandmother went on, “ and to-morrow I’ll 
promise you the children won’t drive you.” And with peace 
in his doggie heart, Rex crawled back to his hole in the nice 
cool earth and went to sleep. 

At six o’clock that evening an uncertain little group of chil¬ 
dren approached the porch. In each little hand was a gift, a 
peace offering, and in each little mind was a doubt as to the 














reception of the gift, and in each little heart was a qualm of 
fear. 

“ You call him, Colin,” said Kenneth. “ You live here and 
he knows you best.” 

“ Why, you’ve always lived here and I’m only just visiting. 
He knows you heaps better. You call him,” Colin protested. 

“ Let’s all call,” suggested Tommie. And in wobbly little 
voices they all said “ Here, Rex, here, Rex.” 

A very placid Rex crawled from under the porch. He ap¬ 
proached the children with a wagging tail. 

“ Why, he’s all right,” shouted Tommie gleefully. “ He is 
feeling friendly and kind and everything. Here, Old Rex.” 






















64 The Rebellion of Rex 

They all crowded around to give him their gifts. From each 
little hand he took the present gently, licking the little fingers 
as he did so, and when the last sweet morsel was gone he lay 
down on the grass at their feet. As usual the children piled 
over him, sitting on his head and back, or curled up in his paws. 
The great tail thumped gently on the ground. 

“ We’ll never treat him that way again, will we? ” Cara 
asked, and the rest answered: 

“ No, we never will.” 

The lovely summer twilight had deepened into night before 
the children went home. They were so happy with Rex and so 
relieved after their fright, that Grandmother had not the heart 
to send them off. But when the really dark came, she told 
Huldah to see that they reached their homes safely, and they 
trudged away quiet and contented. 

And later that night when the garden lay bathed in silvery 
moonlight, three jubilant dogs met by the greenhouse. 

“ It was grand, Rex,” Pat said. “ I ahnost thought you 
were mad.” 

“ I got awfully enthusiastic over it,” explained Rex. 

“ When you began going around in circles the children were 
simply pale with fright,” Sandy went on. “ I was watching 
them.” 

“ It was too bad to frighten them so,” Rex said regretfully, 
“ but it was the only way.” 

“ I think it was,” Pat agreed. 

“And I know it was,” Sandy finished. 

And the three dogs lay in the quiet garden with their muz¬ 
zles on their paws, their eyes twinkling like little stars in the 
moonlight. 


THE PUDDLE PATH 



















THE PUDDLE PATH 

B USTER found it, the puddle first and then the path, 
’way off in a field where the children rarely played. 
The children never knew who made the path and talked 
it over in the secrecy of the willow grove. There were no 
animals in that field, and as Buster said, the dogs never went 
the same way long enough to make any kind of a path. 

“ Perhaps the fairies made it,” Cara suggested. 

“ They couldn’t,” Buster told her. “ Fairies never walk, 
they fly.” 

“ But they dance,” protested Cara. 

“ Only in rings, and then you can scarcely see where their 
feet have been, they are so light,” answered Buster. 

67 






























68 


The Puddle Path 

“ Elves walk harder,” said Marcia, “ and so do Hobgoblins. 
They tread and stamp.” 

“ Perhaps they made it,” Tommie offered. 

“ Of course it was made by some sort of magic,” Buster 
went on, “ because it wasn’t there always and still it’s there 
now. We’ll keep it our path and not tell anyone about it; it 
will be our secret path.” 

“ And our secret puddle,” Marcia said. 

“ What will we do with our path? ” Tommie wanted to know. 

“ We’ll use it to get to the puddle of course, silly,” said 
Buster. 

“ Well, what will we do with our puddle? ” Tommie went on. 

“ Tommie, you are just too silly,” Kenneth said. “ There 
are a million things to be done with a puddle.” 

“ And at a puddle, and on a puddle and around a puddle 
and everything about a puddle,” Marcia finished. “ I have an 
idea right now, and a good one.” 

“ Tell us,” the rest begged, but Marcia only shook her head 
and looked mysterious. 

“ You’ll have to tell us if it is about’ the puddle or path, be¬ 
cause they belong to all of us,” Colin told her. 

“ I will when it gets to them,” Marcia said, “ but right now 
I’m only going to tell Kenneth, ’cause he’s the oldest and ’cause 
I need help.” 

“ When can we know? ” Tommie asked. 

“ When it’s finished,” Marcia answered. 

“ When will that be? ” Colin wanted to know. 

“ This afternoon,” Marcia said. 

Right after dinner the children gathered in the willow 
grove. Marcia and Kenneth were locked in the tool house. 
They had hung a towel over the window so that the rest could 


The Puddle Path 69 

not peek in, and tantalizing sounds of hammering and sawing 
came from the inside. Teasing did not get the towel away from 
the window, and begging did not open the door; and finally 
the discouraged children sauntered to the willow grove, their 
haven when everything else failed them. 

“ They are pounding and pounding. I could hear them, and 
once Marcia said, ‘ That’s the fourth and there are only three 
more to make,’ so there must be one for each of us, because 
there are seven of us,” Buster said. 

“ I wanted to get in awfully and teased and teased and they 
wouldn’t even answer me. It made me awfully cross,” Colin 
said. 

“We won’t be cross about it though, you know,” Buster an¬ 
swered. “ It is nice of them to be making surprises for us and 
they have a right to be locked up, because they thought of it.” 

“ Kenneth didn’t,” Colin said. 

“ Marcia needed him, and oh! let’s not get cross over a little 
thing like being locked out. We’re often locked out of places.” 

“Jam closets,” suggested Tommie. 

“ Always,” Buster agreed briefly. 

“ That makes me think, I brought my dessert to share,” said 
Elizabeth Anne. “ It’ll have to be broken to go ’round.” She 
fished in her pocket. “ I guess it is already a little broken,” 
and she pulled out her hand with white and sticky stuff on it. 

“ What was it? ” Cara asked. 

“ It was kisses and it was good. It is still good, but it 
doesn’t look the same as it did when it came on the table. It 
was round then, as large as a plate and had whipped cream 
with it.” 

“ Looks don’t matter much,” Tommie said. “ Shake out 
your pocket on a paper and we’ll divide.” And Elizabeth 


70 The Puddle Path 

Anne shook out her pinafore pocket on a paper and the chil¬ 
dren brushed the sweet crumbs in equal little piles, not forget¬ 
ting Marcia and Kenneth. 

“ I would have had more, but Katy came in at just the 
wrong time,” Elizabeth Anne went on. 

“ It was nice of you to try, anyway,” Tommie said, his 
mouth full of the sticky sweet. 

“ They must be through,” said Buster suddenly. “ I heard 
the squeak to the tool house door. It always squeaks when it is 
swung. They’re coming. Coo~oo, coo-ee! ” he called. 

Marcia and Kenneth came running down the path. Their 
hands were empty, but they were smiling “ Secret smiles,” as 
Cara called them. 

“ Where’s the surprise? ” Buster asked. 

“At the tool house; we couldn’t bring them all,” Marcia 
said. 

“ Here, eat your share and we’ll go,” said Elizabeth Anne, 
and without asking what it was, Marcia and Kenneth began 
on the little piles of sweet stuff and munched until they were 
gone. 

“ That was good; thanks! ” Kenneth said as he stood up. 
“ Come on, the surprise is ready.” 

They all trooped to the tool house and there in a proper 
little line in front of the door, like seven little soldiers, stood 
seven little sailboats. Maybe a real sailor would have laughed 
at those boats. Flat they were, with clothes-pins nailed to 
their bows, and centerboards of odd bits of iron. But the masts 
were very straight and on each was a white sail, all set and 
ready for a race. The children were delighted. 

“ They are all alike, so you can just grab,” Marcia said, 
“ and then we will sail them.” 


The Puddle Path 


7 1 



Finally all of the boats were launched 





















72 The Puddle Path 

“ Why, the sails are all sewed and everything,” Cara cried. 
“ When did you do that, Marcia? ” 

“ Mother did them for me this noon. That was why she 
would not let you in the sewing-room. We wanted it to be a 
really-truly surprise,” Marcia said. “ And now we are going 
to sail them and have races. We’ll go to the puddle by the 
magic path.” And she started off, followed by the others. 

The path did look like a magic path. Tall grasses grew on 
each side of it, and from a distance of ten feet it could not be 
seen. 

“ It looks just like the rest of the landscape,” said Kenneth 
who had just learned the word and was pleased with a chance 
to use it. 

“ We must be quiet every time we go down it,” Buster said. 
“ It may really belong to the Elves and Hobgoblins and they 
won’t want it spoiled when they come out at night to Use it. 
They won’t care if we use it during the day, but we mustn’t 
make it wider and we mustn’t be noisy on it.” So they tiptoed 
along without a word. 

But when the puddle was reached they forgot all about be¬ 
ing quiet. The boats were launched with all the noise of a 
shipyard and the children danced on the edge of the puddle 
and shouted instructions at the tops of their voices. Finally 
all of the boats were launched and sailing proudly across the 
water, their white sails all puffed out with wind and their funny 
little shapes making straggling wakes in the water behind them. 

“ It makes the puddle seem bigger to have the boats making 
such a fuss about getting across it,” said Kenneth, who was 
racing around the pond to send his boat out whenever it neared 
land. “ Let’s not call it a puddle. That sounds so muddy and 
small.” 


73 


The Puddle Path 

“We could call it a pond,” suggested Buster. 

“ Or a lake. I know; let’s name it after Grandmother. We 
can use the first part of her name and call it ‘ Grand Lake.’ ” 

“ That’s fine! ” agreed the others. 

All that afternoon and the next day the children played with 
their boats. It was queer the way one boat would win the first 
race and another would win the second. It made the races 
much more exciting than they would have been if the same 
boat had come out ahead every time. The children were ever 
so grateful to Marcia and Kenneth and thought it very clever 
of them to have made the boats all alike; and they thought 
they would never tire of the wonderful new game. 

But the third day something happened. The children had 
gone down the secret path quietly as usual, and as usual had 
broken into noisy shouts when the edge of the water was 
reached. The boats had sailed slowly to the middle of the 
pond and there they had stopped. Not a breath of wind to 
blow them back or across, and there they stayed like little ducks 
in a group and the children could not reach them. 

“ If we had a long pole, or something,” Marcia said. 

“ I’ll get my fishing pole,” Tommie offered. He was gone 
quite a while, but the boats were still in an annoying, little, 
out-of-reach group when he returned with his pole. It was 
a long pole, but not long enough to reach the center of the 
puddle. 

“ It’s just too maddening,” Marcia sputtered. “ If we only 
had a big boat.” 

Kenneth turned and looked at her quite steadily and 
thoughtfully. “Oh, Marcia!” he said, “what a beautiful 
idea,” 

The glory of it suddenly struck Marcia. “ With oars,” she 


74 


The Puddle Path 


went on, and as the wonderful idea began to take hold of the 
others, they broke into delighted smiles. 

“ Of course we could never make one that would not leak, 
and if Grand Lake is very deep we’d sink and drown,” Tommie 
said. 

“ And how could we make oars? They have to be shaped 
and fitted in holes in the boat, don’t they? ” Colin asked. 

“ No,” Kenneth told him. “ We could bore holes in the oars 
and run a long nail through them and into the edges of the 
boat.” Suddenly he lay on his back and kicked his heels in the 
air. “Oh!” he cried joyfully. “What a beau-oo-oo-ootiful 
idea! ” 

“ Perhaps we’d better not tell,” suggested Colin. 

“ Certainly not,” Kenneth answered him. “We never tell 
our secrets to anyone until they are over and no longer secrets.” 

“And even then we don’t always tell,” Colin said truthfully. 

“ Sometimes it’s better not,” Marcia said as if to excuse 
them all for not telling, and then realizing that it was not quite 
a proper excuse, she added, “ There is really so little use both¬ 
ering the Grown-ups with our affairs.” 

Tommie’s pockets were bulging when he arrived at the shop 
the next morning. He emptied big and little nails all over the 
floor and grinned cheerfully when the children exclaimed over 
them. Kenneth came with almost as many, and when Colin 
added his collection there were nails enough to build a battle¬ 
ship. 

“ Did anybody say anything? ” Kenneth wanted to know. 

“ Grandmother asked me what we were up to and I said, 
‘ Building something,’ and then she said, * Well, see to it that 
you do not unbuild anything.’ I suppose she meant destroy, 
and I told her we wouldn’t,” Colin answered. 


The Puddle Path 75 

“ She’ll be surprised when she sees what we have made,” said 
Tommie. 

Cara, who was helping Tommie sort the nails, straightened 
up. “ Is this going to be anything like the paint surprise? ” 
she asked. “ ’Cause if it is, I’m not going to help. My stom¬ 
ach ached all night from crying that time, and anyway 
I don’t want to see that hurt look on Grandmother’s face 
again.” 

“ Cara! ” cried Kenneth, “ we put that day with the castor 
oil and spankings; we said we’d never mention it again.” 

“ I know that,” Cara went on stoutly, “ but just the samey I 
want to know. If this is going to be anything Roy can tattle 
about, or that Huldah can keep on talking about whenever 
she gets a little mad at us, I’d rather not play it.” 

“ Cara is right,” said Colin. “ But this isn’t mischief be¬ 
cause we aren’t going to spoil anything. We are just going 
to make something out of old boards and such, and I know 
it’s all right and nobody will care. Let’s get at it. We’ll have 
to hurry, because the pond might dry up or the cows might be 
put in the field and drink it up, and we want our boat while 
the water is deep.” 

And so the big boat was begun. The children made the floor 
first. 

“ So we can have something to nail the sides to,” explained 
Kenneth. They used long boards with smaller ones nailed 
across at both ends and in the middle. 

“ It looks like our storm house door,” Cara said, “ the one 
they put up to keep the snow from blowing in.” 

“ It won’t when we’ve shaped it,” Kenneth told her; and 
soon after that he drew two curved lines at one end, bringing 
them to a point, and when he had made them very black with 


76 The Puddle Path 

the pencil he began to saw. When he had finished, the floor 
looked very like a boat. 

“ It will simply cut through the water,” cried Colin joyfully. 
“ If we only had an engine.” 

“ Nonsense. It would only get started and have to stop; the 
pond is too small,” Buster said. 

The floor seemed perfect and to the eager children the boat 
was almost finished, but the work came to a full stop when 
they tried to make the sides. They could not curve the long 
boards to fit, and when they tried nailing small boards up and 
down great holes appeared and would not improve with patch¬ 
ing. 

“ We might as well put to sea in the sink strainer,” said 
Marcia. 

“ Like the Owl and the Pussy-cat,” said Cara. 

“ They would know better than to start out in this,” Ken¬ 
neth remarked in a disgusted voice. “ Whatever is the matter 
with the leaky thing? I thought boats were easier to make. 
How do men make them fit together anyway? ” 

“We might ask Roy,” Tommie suggested, and then blushed 
under the scornful looks of his playmates. 

“ Let’s not give up,” Buster went on. And for two days 
the children kept pluckily at it, hut at the end of that time 
Kenneth threw down his hammer in despair. 

“ We never can, that’s all! ” he cried. “ Every time we nail 
another board it makes a new hole. Even if we did finish this 
old boat and got it floating, it would sink and we’d all be 
drowned if we got in it. That is just what would happen,” he 
continued dismally. “ We’d all be drowned.” 

“ And that would not be very pleasant or cozy, would it? ” 
asked Elizabeth Anne brightly. 


77 


The Puddle Path 

“ Hardly,” Kenneth said briefly. 

“ Does it mean that we will never go sailing on Grand 
Lake? ” Tommie asked. 

“ Let’s go to the grove and talk it over,” suggested Colin. 
“ I’m sick of this old workshop anyway, and I want to pick 
the slivers out of my hands.” 

A rather gloomy procession filed its way to the willow 
grove and once there the children sank into discouraged si¬ 
lence. Finally Marcia spoke. 

“ It seems a pity to give up the idea of going sailing just 
because we haven’t the tools to make a boat.” She hated 
to admit that they did not know how to build a boat and 
felt a certain satisfaction in blaming the tools in the work¬ 
shop. 

“We are not going to give it up,” Kenneth said positively, 
and then thought a long time while the children waited for 
him to go on. I have it!” he cried joyfully. “Just the 
thing.” 

“ Oh! what is it? ” the others wanted to know. 

“ A wash tub,” Kenneth said. “ To-day is Thursday; they 
won’t need it in the laundry until Monday and we can sail four 
days without making any trouble.” 

“ But it won’t hold us all,” Marcia said. 

“ I have another idea,” Buster went on. “ Let’s get one of 
those doors up-stairs in the shed. They are heavy and should 
hold at least five of us, and the other two can sail the tub. The 
door will never be missed, because it will never be used again. 
Roy said those doors were old doors and it was a pity they were 
going to waste, they were such good lumber, and this way they 
won’t be going to waste.” 

“ Grandmother likes to have us use our old things, too. She 


The Puddle Path 


78 

said so when I wore an old suit the other day,” went on Tom¬ 
mie. “ And once I heard her tell Cara she was glad to see her 
play with her old dolls and not put them away for the new 
ones.” 

And with this very good reasoning the children left the wil¬ 
low grove to find the wash tub and the door. 

The tub was easy to cany. Once out of the cellar and out 
of sight of Huldah, it could be rolled along like a hoop, but the 
door presented difficulties. It was very heavy indeed and very 
large. 

“ It must have been used in a castle,” said Marcia looking 
down at it. “ It is so very big.” 

“ Or perhaps a jail,” said Cara. “ They need strong ones 
in jails, don’t they? ” 

“We can never drag it down the ladder,” Kenneth said. “ I 
wonder where Roy is.” 

“ Why? ” asked Colin. 

“ I thought if he wasn’t here to worry about us lifting things 
too heavy, we could tie a rope to it and let it out of the win¬ 
dow.” 

“ Wait a minute,” said Tommie and disappeared down the 
ladder. He returned in a minute. “ Roy and Henry have 
both gone off with the horses,” he panted. “ We’d better 
hurry.” 

The door was dragged to the window, where the children 
tied a rope to the handle and prepared to push it out. They 
slid it in on edge, and were ready to push it out when Tommie 
said: 

“ Let’s put the rope over a beam, and then we won’t all be 
yanked out after it. That’s the way men lift heavy things and 
let them down.” 


The Puddle Path 79 

So the rope was thrown over a beam and Tommie and Cara 
and Elizabeth Anne took the end of it. 

“ They are heavier than the door and the rest of us will have 
to get it started. Now when I count three, you all help me 
shove,” and he counted “ One! two! three! ” 

Out went the door! up went the rope! and up shot Cara and 
Tommie and Elizabeth Anne. 

“ Ouch! ” shrieked Tommie as his head banged the beam. 

“ Oh!” wailed Elizabeth Anne and she fell in a heaj) on 
the floor; and “Oh!” screamed Cara as she landed smack 
on Elizabeth Anne, and the three of them began to cry for¬ 
lornly. 

“ You aren’t hurt,” Kenneth said scornfully. “ It’s the door 
we’d better worry about. I’ll bet it is broken to smithereens. 
Come on; hurry! ” and he half climbed and half fell down the 
ladder with the rest rolling after. 

The door was not much broken, just a corner split off and 
the knob gone. 

“ It’s more like a boat that way. We’ll have to drag it with 
a rope,” said Buster. 

It was a long, hard pull to the pond and the puddle path was 
wider by several feet when the door was finally dragged to the 
shore and launched. The children found long poles to push 
themselves about, although oars would have been much more 
like real boats. 

“ Indians used poles,” said Buster, and they were all per¬ 
fectly satisfied. 

Cara and Tommie were the first off in the tub. “ Cara is the 
lightest of the girls and Tommie is the lightest of the boys, so 
they can sail in the tub,” said Kenneth, and pushed them off, 
Tommie poling importantly to the middle of the pond. 


8o 


The Puddle Path 

“Oh, Cara, aren’t you scared?” Marcia cried; and Cara’s 
tone was very brave as she answered: 

“ Not a bit. Come on, it’s great fun.” 

Launching the door was not so easy, and twice Kenneth’s 
feet slipped on the edge of the pond and went in the water over 
his boots. 

“ You’ll be a sight when this is done,” said Marcia. 

“ I am now,” Kenneth grinned. “We can’t expect to put 
to sea and stay dry.” 

“ Hi! she’s off! Jump, Ken! ” cried Buster who was pranc¬ 
ing about excitedly on the other end of the door, and Kenneth 
jumped, landed hard on the end toward shore, and sunk it 
under water a few inches. 

“ Here you! What are you doing? My feet are soaking 
wet,” cried Marcia. 

“ Are you a sailor or a baby? ” asked Kenneth scornfully. 

“ A sailor,” answered Marcia, a little subdued. 

“ Then don’t growl about wet feet,” Kenneth told her. 

The door made a splendid raft as long as they all stayed in 
the middle, but it was hard to pole unless one stood on the 
edge. Buster tried to pole from the center. 

“ Here! give me that pole,” said Kenneth. “ I’m not afraid 
to stand on the edge.” He took the pole, jabbed it in the 
muddy bottom of the water and gave a violent shove. No one 
was expecting it. Marcia took a few hurried steps, like a little 
dance, and banged into Elizabeth Anne, who gave her an angry 
push and sent her flying back to the other side of the raft. 

“ What is the matter with you? ” demanded Buster. 
“ That’s no way to act; you’re rocking the boat. You’ll have 
us all in the water, first thing you know.” 

“ I couldn’t help it,” cried Marcia. “ Kenneth ’most shoved 


The Puddle Path 81 

the raft out from under me, and Elizabeth Anne ’most shoved 
me off the raft.” 

“ You stepped on my foot,” said Elizabeth Anne, “ and it 
hurt.” 

Kenneth turned his attention once more to the poling. He 
pushed the end deep in the mud and gave another great push. 
Bang! went the raft into the tub, which rocked perilously. 

“Oh! we’re tipping over!” screamed Cara as she lurched 
into Tommie and caught his arms. 

“Leggo!” howled Tommie. “Do you want to pull me 
overboard and drown me dead? ” 

He tried to get away from Cara, but she only clung tighter. 

Tommie gave a final wrench. “ You can fall in if you want 
to, but you needn’t pull me,” he cried. “ Leggo! ” 

Cara did let go, but only to grab the side of the tub with both 
hands. 

“ Leggo of that, too!” Tommie shouted. “You’re all on 
one side; get in the middle.” 

“ I won’t! ” Cara cried. “ I have just as much right in this 
tub as you have. You think I have to do everything you say.” 

“ I’ll show you,” threatened Tommie and caught her hands 
to loosen her hold on the side of the tub. His weight on one 
side, added to Cara’s, was too much. The tub gave a final 
lurch and rolled over completely. 

There was a terrified scream from everyone on the raft, an 
agonized wait, and Tommie’s head appeared above the water 
to be followed by Cara’s. At least the others supposed it was 
Tommie and Cara, but the muddy, dripping little things looked 
more like water-soaked posts in an old dock. 

“ Oh! Tommie, is it that deep? ” cried Kenneth. 

“ Deep nothing! We’re sitting down in it, and it’s all your 


82 


The Puddle Path 

fault we’re in. You jabbed that old door into us on purpose 
and now look at us,” raged Tommie. 

“ You’re a mean old thing,” cried Cara, “ and I’d just like 
to see you fall in, too.” She raised her hands to wipe her face. 
They were covered with mud, and suddenly furious with Ken¬ 
neth for the plight she was in, she threw a handful of mud at 
him with all of her angry strength. Plop! It hit him square 
in the face. He swung the pole at her, missed her by several 
inches and hit Tommie an irritating blow on the shoulder; a bit 
of friendliness which Tommie promptly returned with a sec¬ 
ond handful of mud. His aim was not as good as Cara’s and 
the squeedgy mess closed both of Buster’s eyes. 

“ Quit that! ” he howled. “ I didn’t do anything to you. 
Gimme that pole, Kenneth. I’ll show him.” 

He jumped across the raft to take the pole, but one foot 
struck the slippery mud, the other went into the air and off he 
shot into the water. He caught the first thing handy to save 
himself. It happened to be Kenneth’s leg. There was an in¬ 
stant’s pause and in he went, taking the leg right along with 
him. 

An angry Kenneth came to the top, quite as unrecognizable 
as the guilty Buster who appeared with him. Kenneth, gasp¬ 
ing for breath, filled his hands with mud to throw at Buster, 
when a shout of derision from Tommie directed his attention 
to that offender. He flung himself at Tommie and ducked him 
under the now perfectly black water. 

“Yee!” shouted Marcia joyfully. “They are all in; we 
might as well go, too. Come on, Elizabeth Anne,” and they 
hopped wickedly into the muddy mess. 

For five minutes the mud simply flew. The children forgot 
their quick anger at one another in the charm of this naughty 


The Puddle Path 83 

new play. They romped in and out of the pond, throwing 
great gobs of mud at each other and pushing each other under 
the inky water. At first their guilty laughter was subdued and 
occasional, but as the battle waged and they became more and 
more unrecognizable, their shouts grew louder and louder, un¬ 
til finally shriek after shriek rang out and the pond was a per¬ 
fect bedlam of noise and action. 

Roy and Henry, returning with the horses, heard the racket. 

“ It’s them young’uns ag’in,” said Roy. “ Leave us see what 
they’re up to.” And they started off in the direction of the 
pond. 

The children, completely absorbed in the joys of the mud 
battle, did not hear or see the two men until they stood at the 
end of the puddle path by the pond, when suddenly Buster 
caught sight of them. His hand, filled with mud to throw at 
Marcia, dropped at his side, his mouth opened in guilty as¬ 
tonishment and he stood rooted to the spot. The others fol¬ 
lowed his gaze and silence fell as they stared guiltily at the 
two men, and the two men stared with astonishment at them. 

“ Where’d you git that door? ” Roy demanded. 

“ In the shed,” answered Buster. 

“ How’d you git it here? ” 

“ We dragged it,” said Kenneth. 

Roy turned to Henry. “ If we made children work as hard 
as that the law’d git after us,” he stated. 

“ Sure,” Henry answered briefly. 

They looked at the mud-caked figures one after the other 
and suddenly they began to laugh. Silently at first, with heav¬ 
ing shoulders, then louder and louder, until finally they sank 
to the ground and rocked with laughter. Roy choked and 
caught his breath and Henry made sounds like a cackling hen. 


84 The Puddle Path 

They held their sides and gasped for breath, and shouted and 
pounded each other on the shoulders. 

The children resented this. 

“ I hate being laughed at,” Kenneth said. He tried to draw 
himself up and look dignified, but someway felt that dignity 
was a failure when clothed in mud. His loftiness brought re¬ 
newed shouts from Henry and Roy. 

“ They are very silly,” said Marcia in a grown-up way. 
“ I'm going. I won’t stay here to be laughed at.” 

She started off, followed by the rest, and as they marched 
up the Puddle Path they could hear the noisy Roy and Henry 
still guffawing on the edge of the pond. 

Grandmother was in the garden gathering roses when the 
muddy and dripping little band trudged up the road. She 
saw them before they saw her and stepped around the hedge to 
meet them as they turned into the yard. 

“ Well! ” she gasped. 

They stood before her, guilty and silent, their faces streaked 
with mud and the corners of their mouths turned down. 
Grandmother looked at them as Roy and Henry had done, and 
then, as they had done, she began to laugh. At first little rip¬ 
ples of mirth came from her lips, and then they grew into some¬ 
thing that sounded like giggles,—the kind of giggles that 
should not come, but that just won’t be held back. Suddenly 
she dropped her roses and put her hands over her face, trying 
to smother the merry little chuckles that simply would not be 
smothered; and at last she gave up and peal after peal of laugh¬ 
ter sounded in the garden. 

The children stood in a row and wondered whether to laugh 
with Grandmother or not. A wild little giggle came from 
Elizabeth Anne and then Marcia gave a sudden little shout. 


The Puddle Path 85 

That was enough. One by one the children joined Grand¬ 
mother in her merriment and as they looked at each other their 
joy got more and more uncontrolled, until they simply could 
not hold in another minute, but whooped and shouted and 
jumped up and down and held their sides with glee. 

“ Oh! ” cried Grandmother. “ What dreadful dears you are. 
I’d like to hug you all, but I’d hate to look as you do. You’ll 
have to hurry home, all of you, and get cleaned up for supper. 
Run into the house, Colin, and get bathed and have clean 
clothes on, and the rest of you run away home . . . 

hurry! ” And as they scampered off they could hear her little 
bursts of laughter. 

The next morning they met in the willow grove as they 
always did to plan for the day. 

“ What did your mother say? ” Colin asked Marcia* 

“ Why nothing. I was so surprised. She was talking to 
Grandmother over the ’phone when we came in and she didn’t 
even look astonished. We were pretty muddy too,” Marcia 
answered. 

“ That’s queer,” said Kenneth. “ My mother was talking 
over the ’phone to Grandmother too, and she never scolded a 
word.” 

“ Mine didn’t,” put in Tommie, and Buster finished, “ Eliza¬ 
beth Anne and I weren’t scolded. Funny, wasn’t it? I ex¬ 
pected it, too, about my clothes, even though they were my 
play clothes.” 

“ It was great fun, anyway,” Colin went on. “ Let’s go 
down the Puddle Path and see how things look.” 

But things looked strange when they got to the edge of the 
pond. The door was gone and the tub as well. The little 


86 


The Puddle Path 

boats were in a row on the bank and Roy was busily digging a 
ditch and the pond looked astonishingly shallow. 

“ Roy! ” they cried together. “ What ever are you doing 
to our puddle? You’re spoiling it with that ditch. All of the 
water is running out.” 

“ Orders is orders,” said Roy, “ and I got mine this morning 
to drain this here puddle.” 
































































































































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